As you may know, I spent the past five years out of the classroom working for the district as a CFF Coach, Technology Learning Coordinator, K-12 Academic Integration Coach, etc., and posted this blog each week as a part of my job.
Since I decided to go forward to the classroom this year, I've tried to keep the blog going, posting every Tuesday, but I often feel like I've poured all my creative energy into teaching and have nothing left for writing. This is not entirely a bad thing. Where my job before allowed me ample time for research, learning, and discovery of new ideas, it allowed me no direct opportunity to teach what I learned to students. Now that I once again have the opportunity to work directly with students every day, I find my energy is almost entirely directed toward planning lessons, engaging students, and bringing everything I can to the classroom, with an unfortunate side effect of having very little left in me to "say it all again" here in a blog post.
As a result, I am always grateful to find some inspiration from colleagues and to share their words here on my page. Today, that inspiration came from Ralph Maltese, 2002 PA Teacher of the Year, and current educational consultant. He wrote today, in a message to our list-serve of technology coaches, teachers and educational leaders, about why teachers are not able to be replaced by computer screens.
I could not have agreed more with his words, particularly because so much of my job (that which is both exciting, rewarding, and completely draining of all my energy!) is spent IMPROVISING.
Yes, I am up until midnight most nights planning lessons and feel very prepared (though under-slept) at 7 am when I meet my high school English students. Yes, I spend hours reading the works in our curriculum, designing projects and assignments, updating my web pages, grading assignments submitted (online, usually) by students, and working to make the classroom experience engaging and meaningful. But an EQUAL amount of time and energy is spent adapting to the unpredictable variables that sit in my classroom every day, the students. They do not all learn the same way. Even individual students may not learn best on a given day through the same methods that they might have learned best the day before. Therefore, as important as my careful planning may be, I have come to believe that it is of equal importance to regularly check for understanding and adapt what we are doing in class.
How do I know when my students are or are not learning as well as they could be?
I ask them.
This is something that isn't on the standardized tests, curricula, state standards, or any proposed system of evaluating teachers that I know of, but has more to do with student learning than anything else I can think of:
regularly conversing with students to see if it is all working, and being ready to change when it isn't.
As they say about all of our "best laid plans," which are essential to HAVE... they must be subject to change.
Mr. Maltese hit this right on the head, to my mind, when he shared his thoughts on the flawed idea that technology could somehow replace good teachers.
I have asked his permission to share his words here:
Here is where the teachers-replaced-by-monitors go wrong:
1) They confuse content with skills. How many of you would hire a surgeon who got all her training from watching videos? Or how many would get on a plane piloted by someone totally certified by an online program?
2) In my old age, I realize that schemata influences the interpretation of data. One's predisposition toward a topic dictates what data he will use to draw conclusions. For example, our proponents of online programs replacing teachers ignore the almost 30 years of research that tells us the most important factor in whether a student learns or not is the quality of the teacher in the classroom---not the tools, or the bulletin board decorations. They also ignore the reality of multiple intelligences which tells us not all students learn the same way. They also ignore the studies from the eighties which drew the following conclusions: students are hurt less when a computer software tells them they are wrong than when a human being tells them they are wrong. But, the software praising them for a right answer means less to the student than a compliment from a human being. Logical, if you think about it.
3) Vgotsky, decades ago, postulated that learning is a social activity, with all the pluses and minuses that goes along with it being a social activity. Learning is also a human activity, much more complex than the advocates of simple content creation claim.
4) Why I am concerned about this is that while this conversation on technology is expected and a necessary conversation, the real conversation should be true school reform which should focus more on school structure and methodology. If we decide all students should learn geometry at the time when their bodies have orbited the sun 14 times, we are still stuck in the same old paradigm whether we are teaching face to face or from a distance.
Wow. To me, that says it all. See you next Tuesday!
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